Food Effects: Phantom Tamer
by Appna
Summary: I stumbled upon a destroyed pewter city and a miniature poké/human government seeking to spread outward to neighboring cities, eventually, other regions. Maybe I should have listened to my parents and just went to school... Hehe Nah.


"I assure you, Zelle, that you'll adjust quite nicely here and don't worry, you are exempt from our initial assessment — with the rough timing and all," he said.

"Thank you, Principal, I'm just glad to find a place that will help me get started — again, faster," I replied firmly.

The principal continued to lead the way as we walked in silence down the hallway. The walls were white painted cinderblock with bulletin boards or classroom doors fixed at even intervals down the hallway, most of the bulletin boards featured a sort of ranking system detailing each of the members of the class for quick reference as to the contents within.

"Though your previous circumstances were undesirable, we are here for you and will support you to the fullest. Once you've completed the curriculum, you may take your leave when you feel that you are ready," he wanted to break up the silence with that statement it seems, I read the handbook and these very details had already been mentioned. "I'm sorr-"

"You don't need to apologize, you aren't the reason I'm here in the first place. So lighten up, kay?" I said in interruption of his incoming pitty. I swept my hand over the puff of black frizzy hair that I allowed to escape the scarf on my head, it was warmer than I imagined in these hallways.

He looked back at me with his brown eyes for the first time since we entered the hallway and he smirked at me. "It's the strong-willed ones that give the rest hope. Thank you for enrolling with us," he replied with a much more lighthearted mood.

We walked for a little while longer and then the ambient temperature dropped as I had expected it to, we were upon our destination.

"Okay, class G-1, we're here," he said as we came to a stop.

"Looks like it."

"What's your introduction style?"

"I'm just here to learn so I can get to work," I replied plainly.

"Certainly," he said. With that, he opened the door and ushered me into the classroom.

I took a deep breath and stilled my nerves and strolled in confidently.

"As we already know, every pokémon has their own type. Each type is a classification given to describe the radiation or _Natural Energy_ that they each passively emit. Extreme exposure to this energy can be harmful — being hit by a Shadow Ball, for instance, however, the passive radiation that each pokémon emits can affect our bodies — positively and negatively, in many ways over time. This is one of the many reasons why the tradition of training pokémon has proliferated for so many years."

In the room were seven other students, three other girls, and four boys. Each individual giving off variations of the same vibes I felt before I came into the room.

"Looks like the class is now even~!"

"Shh. Say anything creepy and I swear I'm going knock out more of your teeth!"

"Meh, you'll grow back."

*sigh*

"Okay class, let's take a moment to introduce our newest student, Zelle Price!" a woman in a burgundy pair of slacks, blazer and blonde hair gestured in my direction motioning for me to stand by her side excitedly. "I can take it from here boss," she said with a wink as I left his care.

"I leave it to you, Ms. Harp," he replied with a confident smile before turning to leave.

As I stood next to her, she nearly reflexively motioned to put a hand in my hair.

I lightly brushed her hand away to my shoulder instead. She took it in stride and proceeded to continue, realizing that it would be rude to belabor the issue. She's pretty quick on the uptake, I'm starting to like her already.

I saw some apprehensive faces among the vastly mixed age group of students before me some around my age, some slightly older, and then one that looked a lot older than everyone else — maybe in their upper teens.

What kind of shenanigans are these?

Seeing the confusion on my face, "As you know Ms. Price —"

"You may call me Zelle, same goes for everyone here," I cut in.

"Alrighty, so, as you know Zelle, this is a pokémon school for new trainers looking to draft pokémon as opposed to taking newborns, like many others" she began, and I nodded this much was in the handbook. "As such the standard training age remains ten, however, this particular school is a special case in that a small population of the students here don't even have ages anymore, like me," she continued.

I was beginning to lose her in the explanation, no age?

She saw my confusion become slightly more advanced. "How about this, tell us a story — though if you don't want to, that is fine," she said as she smiled impishly. "Tell us the story of your death."

"Oooo, storytime already?" a younger boy chimed in.

"Jack, what did I say about being creepy?" the girl behind him hissed.

With a sigh the blonde haired boy named Jack relented. "Fine, Alissa," he said, not wanting to get into it at the moment.

"Good," she nodded. "Please, don't give him the time of day," she tilted her head and smiled before sweeping a few braids out of her face. The other students shared a brief chuckle even the older dark-skinned boy in the front.

"I guess you've all gone through this, huh?" I asked the group, they all nodded. I sighed. "Fine, can't back down now I guess." I took a deep breath. "You see, it all started a year after the ultra beast invasion. My parents attempted to keep me from embarking on my pokémon journey, well, mostly my dad wanted to stop me. So deciding that I'd be a special case — and wouldn't get killed in the process, I ran away. With no pokémon at all," I began.

"Wait wait wait, so you ran off against your parents' wishes, knowing the danger, and still went ahead with it?" the eldest boy asked, now fully invested. "I'm guessing that went pretty bad – seeing as how you're dead and all."

"You mean like the rest of us?" a girl in the back next to the window retorted causing the former to wince sheepishly.

"Actually, it went pretty well, to be honest," I replied to the older boy. "I-I only just died a few weeks ago."

This got everyone's attention.

"You were out in the wild with no pokémon for a year and a half?" Ms. Harp couldn't resist cutting in as well.

"Well not the entire time, I got lucky. From there I managed to get licensed as a full trainer, thanks to my mother and Professor Elm and then go on to collect all eight Johto badges."

"Wow… that's insane," the sassy girl in the back said.

"You're tellin' me, Carla," said Jack.

"So, can I get back to how I died or what?" I interrupted the oohs and ahhs.

"S-sorry," both Jack and Carla replied slightly stuttering because both said it at the same time.

Zelle smirked as she continued. "So, I'm going to skip all of the stuff leading up to my decision to try and take on Kanto's gyms. I can tell that whole story later if we get to know each other a little better. Okay, here we go, Kanto — a month before I lost a trainer battle and ended up here today."

* * *

"Well, crap... They weren't joking when they said they were down two whole gyms," I sighed exasperatedly.

"It actually looks like Pewter's been wiped off of the map…"

I reached for an ultra ball on my hip and released my florges, Yulu. I actually managed to draft her as a floette in Johto, her home was destroyed in Kalos and so she travels with me until she finds an area suitable enough to create a flower field to her tastes.

"Is anyone… still alive here, Yu?" I asked hesitantly.

Yulu released a small cloud of white petals, allowing them to scatter freely in the wind.

After she finished, we set up camp having cleared an abandoned pokémon center beforehand with Clarg my feraligator. Despite the fact that he was a Johto starter he isn't my starter, I can thank my mom for coming through on this one though. "Alright I'm gonna get food ready, you know the setup, big guy," I said. He posted up outside while I began to cook for the rest of my team.

"I can't believe the league would just let this place rot. It's so close that they could easily get the resources here," I mused. "It kind of sucks because I needed to get new supplies… All I have are ethers." I said as I rifled through my bag looking for anything useful.

For the next hour, things were nice and quiet.

"Ges flor, ges," said a previously concentrating Yulu.

"Ready?" I replied. To which she nodded.

"Okay, within 100 meters."

She shook her head.

"200 meters."

Shake.

"Pewter City Limits? Route 3?"

Another shake.

"Route 4?"

"Flor Flo," she nodded.

"Less than five?"

"Flo Flo," she nodded and indicated two with her fingers.

"Pokémon or human?"

She held up two fingers, one of each hand.

"Pewter has been totally abandoned, Pokémon trainer on Route 4, and I'm assuming your petals are still riding the wind, so we might get more information if we wait a while longer," I surmised from the exchange, to which Yu gave me a confident nod.

"Okay! Thanks, Yu! Dinner is almost ready," to which she happily nodded.

I called Clarg back in and released the rest of my team. El, my elektross; Shift, my salazzle; Reiki, a mienshao; and a rather peculiar addition to my crew, Branda, a honedge.

Branda is interesting because she can speak with me by transmitting intent, it's almost as if I can feel what she wants to do. As such I just follow the intent to a logical statement, I think telepathy will be a thing soon once she evolves.

"So guys, Pewter is empty. No gym, no police, no pokémon center, and no people. It looks like Kanto didn't hold up like Johto did," I had begun dishing out food to the crew and they respectively ate, except for Branda. "You won't need to put out your repel Shift, there's only another pokémon trainer and their pokémon."

"Laz," she replied and nodded.

"Yu will let us know if they try and make a move on us, though, it seems unlikely if they haven't already," the rest of the group nodded as they ate.

"I guess with Lance focusing ranger efforts on Johto to keep things normal there, they just don't have enough to handle Kanto," I mused. "I guess it makes sense to strengthen trainers in a better environment to raise up more rangers for when it's time to work." I surmised.

After we ate I beckoned Branda over to me, "Hey, ready to eat?" I asked.

She bobbed herself up and down in confirmation.

"Shao! Mein, mein!" Reiki scolded me.

"I know, I know but as long as I use an ether afterward I'll be fine," I replied. He was worried that I'd take permanent damage from feeding Branda the way I did.

I grabbed her handle and the cloth of her hilt wrapped tightly around my wrist, engulfing it in a cold chill. My own natural energy was being drawn away, and I became tired. Branda knew how much to take and would only fight to the level of energy I could provide her, this was to prevent her from taking dangerous amounts of my own energy.

We all knew the drill.

"I know getting necro burned by a ghastly sucked, but now it seems that I'm nearly resistant to ghost contact now," I grinned.

Reiki huffed and folded his arms one over another. "Mein," he sulked frustratedly.

"Look, I know it can be dangerous but if you do it in small doses you actually start to feel good," I said with a smile, I scratched him behind his ear which he resisted stubbornly and swatted my hand away before returning himself to his poké ball.

I sighed as the rest of my team watched our rough interaction play out.

"Sal…"

"I know… we're getting better, at least he cares enough to get angry about it."

Branda released my arm and floated energetically before me.

"Ready to keep watch?"

She bobbed again and sent me a confident intent.

"Alright, let's sleep gang, Branda's got this," I said as I set up.

We all curled up in a pile, the larger of us on the outside and me sandwiched in the middle. We had long since outgrown the need for a tent, they're for wusses and are a waste of time.

* * *

"What took your petals a few hours to traverse, took us two weeks," I said with a sigh. We finally emerged from. I wanted to do some additional training with the group before we just waltzed into Cerulean.

"The training paid off though, I'm completely immune to ghost's natural energy now, and Branda evolved into a doublade," I said to Yulu, who was scanning ahead with her petals diligently. She kindly humored me with a nod before resuming her work.

"Flor, ges ge geflor lorge florges" said as she pointed ahead.

[We're almost there, it seems that the trainer stuck around too.] said Branda telepathically to me.

"Thanks you two, let's see what we have here,"

I picked up my pace and sure enough, there was a trainer, but I saw what seemed to be a trainer encased in a full-term leech seed hanging from a tree. "Uh Yu, we clarified that the trainer was alive right?"

She nodded.

[Uh, Zelle… that boy is very alive,] said Branda.

"What?" I asked before I approached.

"Hey, could you guys keep it down, I just woke up," the trainer yawned. "Hey, Gox they're here, you can let me down now."

"Goa…"

The voice came from bushes below the tree, however after the creature moved, it turned out that the bushes had black horns and a brown fur pattern on the other side.

"That's a pretty big gogoat," I said with mild interest.

The bundle of vines lurched down to the ground and a boy around the same age as me emerged from the pile. He had a dopey look about him and his clothes were stained green from the vines.

"Thanks," he said before yawning again.

"So… how long have you been waiting for us?" I asked, curious about his expectation being fulfilled with our arrival.

"Ever since you sent those petals, the village elder told me to wait out here, 'till you arrived that is." he replied, he sounded lazy or slow on uptake but I let it go.

"Uh, Village? Cerulean is a city," I snapped back.

"Not since the pokémon took over," he replied dully.

"What? How!"

"Jus' follow me if you want your questions answered…"

He motioned for me to follow him as he languidly turned towards the city.

[Zelle, I don't like this,] Branda said privately to Yulu and me.

Yu didn't make any confirmation of the communication as to not give our tactic away, just as we practiced.

Unfortunately, I couldn't communicate back to her telepathically just yet, needed practice.

I followed and we went on our way for about an hour before we reached the wall — that wasn't supposed to be there to keep people out. The wall lurched and heaved slowly, it was alive. Wood, dirt, and vines were woven together like a wicker basket.

"You've got to put on one of these," he said as he handed a cool brown seed to me. "It's a leech seed. But don't worry they're non-lethal, used for currency, and as a form of identification," he said nonchalantly.

"What's going on here?" I asked trying to delay putting on the seed.

"It's… society reimagined by pokémon essentially. C'mon put the seed on, it's boring out here." he replied.

Hesitantly I tapped the seed to my wrist, quickly it exploded into vines that latched onto my arm aggressively causing me to yelp in surprise.

"Yeah, I freaked out my first time too, now here's the fun part, think about an accessory that you'd like to have," he commanded in a decidedly uncharacteristic excitement.

After he spoke and broke me out of my stupor, I calmed down and did as he asked. After about a minute the vines began to solidify into a wooden bangle a replica of the one that my mother wore all the time.

"Nice choice, I think we're ready," he said as he approached the wall. I followed but stumbled in exhaustion, Yulu caught me before I fell.

"F-Flor!" she said worriedly.

"Oh don't worry, everyone's first time is tiring, she'll be good as new in a few. By the way, my name is Dylan."

"N-nice to meet you, I guess, Zelle," I replied as I regained my composure.

He smiled and then proceeded towards the wall. It parted for him like a curtain and then he motioned for us to follow him. I could see the league having trouble getting through this if you were uninvited.

We passed through what seemed to be a tunnel but it was more like a thick bush that very easily parted as we proceeded forward, all the while sealing behind us.

Once we finally entered the city limits I was amazed, they had repurposed the forest around the town to be the walls that we passed through.

The roads had been dismantled, nature taking back over, but there were paths. The same wicker pattern that was on the outside of the walls.

"Okay, you can take off your shoes now," said Dylan as he took off his.

"Why? I think I'll pass," I replied.

"Suit yourself," he said as he stepped on the path. The wood seemed to breathe beneath his feet as he stepped forward. He stretched out and yawned happily.

"Oh man that's soooooo much better!" he said with noticeably much more energy than before. "I highly recommend this while you're wearing that bangle, it's so refreshing."

"Flor, florges."

[She says to go for it,] began Branda [I think by putting on that bangle, you might have complicated your situation. His natural energy is leveling out while yours is slowly declining,] she explained.

"Tch, my curiosity got the better of me again… fine."

"What was that? You can understand your florges?" he asked curiously. "That's amazing."

"Er, yeah," I lied.

My doublade is actually possessing my body at the moment. A practice that had been initiated by the great ghost tamer, Morty. What makes this great is that by doing this, I get the benefits of being able to react to things without thinking about it. Branda is considerate however and will only string me along if I give her permission to do so, we haven't been in any fights since we got to kanto though. I guess everything has really cooled down since all the champions and rangers drove off the UB's.

"So I just step on the path like this?" I said after took my shoes off and placed them in my red backpack.

Upon stepping onto the path, I felt supercharged as the wood squirmed below my feet. "Oh wow. Oh, shi-" I said as I was filled to the brim with energy.

[T-this is amazing!] said a very excited Branda as she too could barely contain herself. This was made evident by her fidgeting spreading to me.

"Nice right? This village has no weak, poor, or sick. Everyone works, and everyone plays," he said with a smile on his face as we both looked at the state of the city.

These paths were wide and spanned pretty much every portion of the city. The buildings appeared to be in pristine condition even if they were slightly overgrown or fused into trees. It seemed like every aspect of this place as self-sufficient.

The fragility of human kind's infrastructure was reimagined, it even went beyond robustness.

Anti-Fragility? Growth under duress, strength gained from being steadily tried by nature? I'm a little afraid of what pokémon could do if they were given more chances like this.

[Most humans are,] this voice was new, it wasn't Branda's because it was actually multiple voices not belonging to any one gender or age group.

"W-who's there?" I asked out loud.

"Something wrong?" Dylan asked as we passed a pokémon center that had the same doors as the walls of the city.

"I heard a lot of voices," I replied.

"Oh, that must've been the leader. Mewtwo," he said as if this were normal information.

"Didn't Mewtwo reveal himself and die to help end the UB invasion?"

"Yeah, that much is true, but Mewtwo wasn't the only mewtwo in existence, If you ever get to meet her, she can tell you more about that tale later. At the moment we're headed to meet the village elder, A venusaur," he finished.

We arrived at a giant tree in the middle of the city, upon entering the titanic trunk of this tree we were met with the sight of a large venusaur.

"Please, take a seat," the creature bellowed his deep voice reverberated with the walls of the great space.

A pair of chairs grew from vines, on which I decided it was okay to accept the highly convenient hospitality.

"You seem to be taking my talking to you quite well," the creature said jovially. "Have you met others like me before?" he asked. "By the way, I am Elterra, the one entrusted by Shazzaud, our village leader, with the task of nurturing our residents."

"Nice to meet you, my name is Zelle, just a traveling pokémon trainer," I began "and yeah, I met a traveling loppuny, she seemed to be searching for someone."

Elterra seemed to be displeased with my declaration of being a pokémon trainer. "I see…" he replied.

"Well, I'd like to inform you that while you are in the village you will not be allowed to practice such traditions here," he admonished. "This also includes the usage of your capture devices."

"I'm sorry but I cannot compl-"

"Hey, Zelle, you might want to reconsider your stance," Dylan said interrupting me.

"No, I don't feel fully safe here and even though I agreed to wear this," I flashed the bangle. "I don't have any issues moving on and leaving this place behind."

"Perhaps that is what you should do child, we will have nothing to do with Old Kanto or it's barbarous beliefs!"

"Fine, take this stupid bangl-"

An explosive sound ripped through the air and we all ran outside.

"Ah, another one," said Elterra. "This is what your kind knows, destroyers without a second thought for those you employ to do your bidding." I pulled my binoculars from my backpack to get a clearer look.

It was a kid that looked like he was about to piss his pants, it was rather pathetic really. What I found odd was that this kid decided to attack a place that the league has seen fit to leave alone.

"I can handle this," I said having been stirred to action by the giant cabbage's blanket claims. I released Reiki and Yulu got ready. Elterra looked at me and then a smug grin appeared on his face.

"Well, perhaps I could be wrong about you barbarians," he said, elegant yet venomous as he looked back out to the city limits.

"..." I didn't respond.

"Dylan, go and ensure that everyone is evacuated to the safer regions of the Village." He nodded and hopped on Gox's back before they took off.

[He seemed so nice at first…]

Another explosion rang out as the trainers pokémon were cutting a line through the city it seemed. "C'mon you two, let's go."

* * *

It took us about an hour of cat and mouse to catch up with the intruder. It was a kid who looked like they just started their journey and he didn't seem to fit the bill for some villainous rouge, it was like he wasn't cut out for this life at all.

His clothes were dirty, tattered, and even burned in some places. He was very shaken up and it looked like he was simply wandering around, lost. He didn't have a wooden ID like I did so I couldn't really make heads or tails of this situation.

"You seem awfully out of place to be attacking a town on your own," I yelled to the kid gaining his attention. Quickly Reiki, and Yulu fanned out around the kid surrounding him on two sides.

His attention snapped to me frantically. "P-please get a-away!" He yelled. "They're going to come back," his voice died out slightly.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion and looked around. I heard burst from above, "All you Branda!" I shouted. Pretty soon after I felt my body jerk as if on puppet strings, an explosion followed soon after and I tumbled for a few feet before I regained my footing.

A Fire Blast had seared the ground and left a smoldering crater in its wake.

"Boar!"

"Ape!"

"Blaze!"

Three battle cries cut through the haze and the ringing in my ears as an emboar took up a position before me standing defensively in front of the boy. It turned around and backhanded the boy knocking him to the ground. It grunted a series of sounds that I could only make out to be its native tongue.

I looked around again to find that there were a blaziken and an infernape standing on two rooftops on either side of the road.

[He's angry at the boy for giving away their position. I don't think the boy is a traditional trainer like you are, Zelle.]

"Well, let's drive 'em off," I released Clarg "This, kid's team is stacked on fire, you can sweep 'em," I said confidently before patting Clarg on the back roughly and getting out of the way.

"Hydro pump on anyone!" I yelled as I pushed over to Reiki. All three enemy pokémon tensed up, ready to jump.

"Yu, grass knot, emboar!"

Clarg fired a highly pressurized Jet of water at the emboar and before he could make an attempt to get out of the way — which would have left the boy in danger of getting killed by Clarg, he tripped on the grass knot that snaked his foot and took the entirety of the attack.

From there it was chaos, there was more collateral damage than I would have liked but we at least retraced the damage that they had caused initially.

All three fighters were a shivering mess as I basically had Clarg spam Hydro pump and chug the last of our ethers, It was pretty much cake. Naturally, their foiled attempt was followed by a death threat which didn't come from the boy but his team, how did he end up with such an unruly group?

It was even more awkward as they departed, the boy tried to escape but was scooped up by the blaziken angrily as she took off.

We reconvened at the elder's lair four hours later.

* * *

"So, how do you plan to fix this?" Elterra asked sharply.

"What are you saying?"

"The damage to our village and the fact that you didn't finish the job," he accused. I winced.

"Finish the job? He ran away in defeat, if that's not finishing the job I don't know what is," I tried to redeem myself.

"The boy and his team of barbarians lived," he replied coldly.

"You wanted me to kill them?"

"If you would have, that would have been the last time we would see them. Those three return regularly with a new trainer every season. We manage to kill the trainer without fail, every time," he said smugly.

I couldn't really respond to that. I don't know what to make of this place anymore but I need to leave.

[Not before you repay us for your damage, child,] said the leader — from where? I'm not sure.

Elterra caught me looking around in confusion. "That was the voice of Shazzaud, our leader."

"Fine... How can I repay?" I asked with a huff.

Elterra held out a vine and motioned for me to approach. I complied and he grabbed my wrist. "Watch it, if you want to keep that vine that is," I threatened.

He merely chuckled and tapped the bangle on my wrist. Soon a small bushel of two dark purple berries grew from a small branch that appeared where he touched, I felt my exhaustion build to a level that I had never experienced before. "We want 45 more of these berries, If I try to get all of them now, you will die," he began before he examined the berries and snapped them off of my wrist. "I will admit, however, that the quality of these berries is rather nice, so I'll be fair and require 26 instead," he said. "Is this pleasing, Leader?"

[Most agreeable,] she said, still not revealing herself to us.

"Fine," I agreed I can't really complain, I could have just left them to handle their own business. But I didn't.

For the next two weeks, my team and I helped out around the village with little trouble. I could only produce two berries a day, which kinda sucked. Apparently, the berries were just concentrated natural energy. The berry's color depended on the type that you had within, I guess because of Branda's constant contact with me and my getting used to it caused that.

Elterra definitely never warmed up to me at all, so I stayed out of his way when I could.

Shazzaud never spoke to me again, she apparently felt no desire to do so.

The villagers were nice it was weird though they all spoke very highly of the place and seemed to be a bit too okay with everything, I didn't care to convince them otherwise since it seemed to be working for them.

I was promptly ushered out of the village and on my way to Saffron City, still without a single Kanto badge after having been to two cities that had gyms.

This was going to be a weird journey I supposed.

After about a few hours of walking, I saw a familiar face. It was that ragged boy that had attacked Cerulean a few weeks ago, he was curled up on the ground hyperventilating.

Just to be safe I released Clarg again because I already knew what to expect from his team.

"Hey, clean him up a little bit let's get some answers," he complied and misted the boy with cool water.

Eventually, the boy calmed down but he looked at Clarg with a deranged look in his eyes, he actually had a nystagmus and after seeing the blood on his shirt it was clear that he had been poisoned. His jittery eyes and slowly quickening breaths made me feel a little uneasy.

In a flash a silver glint entered my vision as the boy stabbed Clarg with nearly super-human strength, driving the knife cleanly between his ribs and into his heart. He followed up with a swift knee driving even the handle of the knife into his ribs.

"No! He's been drugged!" I yelled as Clarg threw the boy across the clearing.

He roared and clutched his chest trying to fight off the damage that he just received. "Shi-" I hissed as I pulled the emergency release on my belt releasing my entire team at once. Clarg fell over gasping for air and coughing up blood as I tried to tend to him, but there was nothing I could do."

The kid's eyes were hollow and lifeless as he shambled back to his feet. What kind of drug does this? I didn't have time to think as a Branda took over and guided me out of the paths of multiple fire attacks.

"They're after me specifically guys, this is a brawl everyone!" I yelled as I took a position behind Shift.

"Lazzle!" she said as she prepared a sludge bomb and launched it at the boy. The attack was ignited mid-air by an ember and it exploded spreading a smog over the battlefield. I recalled Clarg and we retreated to Saffron, Cerulean would never let us back in their city limits.

Everyone knew what to do in this situation, this is what the Johto elite four called a Mark-11 battle.

Each badge that you earn gives you a Mark on your record. All elite four matches are Mark-8, the highest difficulty. The Champion's battle is Mark-9, meaning you can kill your opponents pokémon if you choose to do so.

This here is a death match. It's not going to be over until one side is dead. It's highly illegal and frowned upon, why is this kid doing this?

We continued to run for hours with Shift giving the boy a hard time by laying acid traps and sludge in her wake. We were going to stalemate this out until we reached our destination but something unexpected happened.

I took an arrow to my forearm, that anchored me to a tree and then disappeared. I checked for a wound but there was none I looked around for the source of the attack but I couldn't find it. I tried to run forward but I felt a sickening feeling, the further I moved the more I felt I would die right there.

"We've got to find whatever shot that at me or I can't get away!" I yelled at my team. "Yu, you're up, find it with your Petal Blizzard!"

"El, I need you to cover me from those fighters with Reiki and Branda!"

"Tross!" From there, even more, chaos ensued.

Lightning and fire, craters and explosions, the forest was being torn apart. Yu occasionally used Protect to keep me from harm's way while she searched for my captor. Eventually, she fired a Moonblast into a random tree and out came a hooded owl with black plumage. It was a decidueye definitely but this one was shiny.

Finally, my escape was near, they fought with all their might but a stray Fire Blast clipped Yu burning her and knocking her to the ground. The decidueye followed up with a strong leaf blade and repeated with another leaving two large bleeding gashes oozing across her arms and body from the impact.

We're experiencing too many slip-ups.

Just as the decidueye went in for the kill, however, Yulu countered with toxic, showering the owl with a thick purple slime.

It backed up and immediately vomited on the ground before stumbling back again. After vomiting again, it decided that it did its part and fled the battle.

"Nice one down three to go, gang!"

With the Spirit Shackle no longer an issue we began to migrate again. That was until I heard Reiki scream, I snapped my neck in his direction to find that the blaziken had pinned him to the ground with her talons.

As Reiki helplessly flailed, the infernape was roasting his legs with a steady stream of flames. "Shift, El! Get him out of there!"

Another sludge bomb from Shift caused them to scatter before the bomb landed on Reiki, El had extracted him with ease.

I taught Shift to lob her Sludge Bombs in a way that gave us a fixed amount of time to act accordingly. This works very well until the enemy figures out the timing too.

Reiki had serious third-degree burns that even a burn heal couldn't fix, with a sigh I recalled him as well. This fight is going on too long.

I'm still at a numbers advantage on this kid so it'll work out.

Yulu — after brief break in her ball is over, Shift, El, and Branda are all I got left. Branda isn't really ready for this kind of fighting though, you've got to have a lot of discipline.

"Sorry, Shift, El use rain dance!"

He complied and soon we had a nice cool sheen of rain. The rain was evaporating immediately off of Shifts body which annoyed her because she had to flare up to stay warm, a waste of energy.

"El, get a hold of that blaziken and fry it's brain, permanently. Bind, Thunder."

We halted our retreat and the group behind us stopped pushing in our direction. We stood about 30 meters apart.

"Branda, Shadow sneak El," I said before she exited my body and did as I asked.

The boy was emotionless as they appeared behind their group in a flank. The emboar hastily shoved the boy violently out of the way in my direction before trying to Fire Punch El. Branda stopped it and El hit his mark.

The infernape and the Emboar jumped away before a massive pillar of light struck both blaziken and El from the sky. The gnarled light ripped and tossed the blaziken's head back and forth as she seized under the intense pressure. Sure, she wasn't going to take any real burns from the attack, but becoming a vegetable isn't something to scoff at either.

El was fine as he released the paralyzed bird twitching on the ground. Branda followed up by slitting its throat and leaving it for dead.

I ended up having to recall Shift because of the rain, it really got to her and she was shivering. It was two on two now and the end was in sight. His remaining fighters were also beginning to shiver as their internal fires were going out.

Just tire em out and you're good to go.

I sighed in relief as things drew to a close, the kid was strung out on some kind of poison that acted as a steroid. The two leaking holes in his shoulder were a dead giveaway, he returned his two remaining pokémon.

The boy laughed. "I-I g-got you n-ow, hehe," he said in a creepy broken sing-song voice.

He ran at me with another knife — much faster than I expected, Branda used Shadow Sneak to return to me and block the boy's not-so-feeble attempt to stab me.

He vomited blood before he laughed again, there were tears in his eyes, however.

"Branda, finish him," I ordered. He was as good as dead, no need to let him suffer any longer.

She hesitated.

I sighed, "I understand, I've never asked you to do this before, but he's long gone now…" I said somberly.

He continued to struggle against her.

"Do it!" I yelled.

Right before her other blade could slip into his ribs, a vice grip pressure erupted from the ground and grabbed my ankle.

It was a seviper's jaws, a fang barely missing my Achilles.

"Shi-" I yelped before the boy disengaged and prevented himself from receiving a fatal blow.

"I told you so~," the boy said creepily.

[Oh no you don't!] Branda screamed before she decided to re-engage the boy this time with the sole regret that she had not done so sooner.

"No! Branda, don't! It's a distra-" it was too late, the seviper's tail shot out of the ground and sank deeply into my stomach. I tried to dodge but I was anchored in place.

The sharp pain was very quickly dulled away by poison leaving only the hunger that I was feeling prior to being stabbed. I hadn't eaten all day so I was ready for a burger in Saffron, I heard that they had excellent food.

Before long however even my own hunger faded as it was relieved by the venom from the giant snake's tail.

Branda failed once again to kill the boy again but El caught him by the head in his mouth and fried his brain. Eventually, the snake let me down gently and disappeared into the ground once again, leaving me to choke on my own blood and venom.

* * *

[I-I'm so sorry… I let my anger get the best of me,] Branda said as she possessed my body. She could barely handle the intense burning sensation from the leftover venom that El couldn't suck out of my stomach.

I had to stop him because he had become badly poisoned himself just from making contact with it. He's on my belt now with the rest of my team. All of the status indicators on their pokéballs had either faded to black — indicating death, or were well on their way to it.

"It's… okay… we're almost there."

* * *

I stood in front of the class and took a short break before I finished up.

"It took us three days of non-stop walking at a slugma's pace to reach Saffron, once we reached the pokémon center I was told that:

El died from the poison, Apparently, three days is too long to go untreated. I should have bought more gear before I left for pewter...

Reiki would never be the same again and he opted to be put down, he would take nothing that I said to heart. He really did kinda hate me.

Clarg died soon after he was stabbed, when I returned him his eyes were already faded.

Yulu and Shift left the team because they felt that they failed it. Given the next piece of news, nothing I could have said would have erased the guilt that they shouldn't have had in the first place.

Finally, that I had been dead for three days already.

"The only thing keeping me _alive_ was Branda, my doublade," I said as she appeared by my side. "We managed to achieve what Morty started, by accident," I chuckled while I said that, I had let a tear roll down my cheek before I realized it. "Sabrina and the staff at the pokémon center were all mortified, naturally, this never made the news and I pretty much got hauled here instead."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that Zelle, you had quite a run before now," said as she placed a hand on my shoulder. "running into a hijacked belt isn't the greatest experience, I've had to put down a handful of them myself… It's just so difficult freeing them before they get permanently mauled like the one you encountered was," she tried to reassure me.

"Yeah… so am I done?" I asked though at the same time partially declaring it.

She smiled and pointed me to a seat on the right in the second row.

Everyone in the room tried not to watch me but failed. "Now, let's get through this lesson before we accost our new student with even more questions!" to which everyone sighed and complained.

Classes went well over the next five months, I regret managing to lose most of my team on top of dying… I honestly don't know how my parents are going to take that bit of news.

Now that I'm like this, however, as many perks as there are, there are quite a few downfalls too.

In order to heal the wound I got I had to use something called Intrem, it's some kind of strange substance that binds anything organic. Otherwise, if I get injured it will never heal naturally.

I don't have to eat food anymore, which is kind of sad because I really love burgers.

I'll never grow up naturally, once again something to do with that Intrem stuff.

Other than that, it's not so bad, Branda and I get along just fine — she's still a little too hard on herself but that'll fade soon, I hope.

I mean she technically gets to live again, and so do I, whats not to love?

One thing that happened was that another person had gotten attacked by a challenger — a moniker that had been given to pokémon like the ones that had killed me. What made this strange though is that it happened in Johto, which was supposed to be relatively safe in comparison to Kanto — despite their proximity.

He also survived somehow, the headline being "300 poison stab wounds…?"

* * *

 **So before I dive headlong into my longer form story Food Effects I wanted to try writing shorter stories first. Food Effects is going to definitely be more than 100k words and I would rather fail at writing faster than waiting until some unknown time later before I make actual progress.**

 **As such I'm going to also be releasing short stories that revolve around characters that will appear in the series alongside updating the main series.**

 **I ended up introducing Natural Energy at a high level which is kind of a spin on the card game's energy cards, and the video games concept of Power Points, and nuclear radiation. I wanted to try this out because I've seen people take spins on how a pokemon's energy works. Is this original? I don't think so, but it doesn't hurt to re-explore it though. I've read a lot of fics and man the good ones, are really good.**

 **Also, this fic is partially computer generated in the same way that Food Effects is, I just have to work to make them feel more alive.**

 **Anyway, I'm still looking for a beta reader and am very open to any level of review critical or not.**

 **Also thank you so much for your follows, I really appreciate it!**


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